The Nevada Museum of Art puts sustainability at its core – The Art Newspaper

In the high desert of northern Nevada, where drought, wildfire and rising temperatures have become part of the everyday vocabulary, the Nevada Museum of Art (NMA) has positioned itself as both a cultural institution and a laboratory for environmental thinking. That ambition is visible not only in the museum’s programming but in its operations, governance and public identity.

Since its founding in 1931, the museum has had environmentalism in its DNA. One of its co-founders, James Church, was a pioneering climate scientist known for developing ways to measure snowpack on nearby Mount Rose. His work helped establish modern water forecasting techniques, crucial in early studies of climate change.

In recent decades, the institution has doubled down on its eco-conscious origins. In 2009 it opened the Institute for Art + Environment, a research centre that houses archives from more than 1,500 artists and organisations and examines the relationship between humans and the natural world.

“It was a radical thing at the time to put a stake in the ground and say, ‘we’re here to study art and the environment’,” says David Walker, the museum’s chief executive. The move was significant given the politics of Nevada, which span the ideological spectrum. “I found very quickly that you have to marry radical ideas with art and education,” Walker adds. “They can open your eyes to something you may not have considered.”

Like most cultural organisations, the NMA has carbon-intensive operations. Exhibitions require shipping, lighting and climate-controlled galleries. Daily activities and events create waste, and energy is needed for things like staff travel. In 2021 the museum began to formally address these issues, launching a Green Team made up of staff across departments to produce a sustainability plan aligned with the Paris Agreement and reduce emissions and waste by 2030. The efforts were spearheaded by Apsara DiQuinzio, who joined the museum in 2021 as a senior curator and is now its chief curator.

“At the time, I was already thinking about green operations and one of the first things I wanted to do when I came to Nevada… was help develop a green plan,” DiQuinzio says. The plan the museum came up with takes a comprehensive approach to sustainability, considering things from eliminating single-use plastics to installing occupancy sensors that reduce electricity [use] when rooms are vacant. The team also worked to calculate its baseline carbon footprint for 2019 and develop a path to reduce its emissions, work it did with guidance from the nonprofit sustainability consultants Ki Culture.

These calculations determined what institutions worldwide grapple with: the bulk of energy used comes from powering their buildings. Thankfully for the NMA, the start of its expansion project in 2022 provided an opportune moment to switch to greener infrastructures. The expansion opened less than a year ago, so the museum does not yet have information to compare with previous carbon analyses, but so far it has determined that, despite increasing its physical space by 42%, it only raised energy consumption by 15%.

While it improves operations, the museum continues to champion environmental themes in its programming, including the current exhibition, Into the Time Horizon (until 3 January 2027). Spanning the entire building, the exhibition features nearly 200 artists whose work addresses environmental consciousness, sustainability and climate justice. Artists including Eric-Paul Riege, Kiki Smith and Carolina Caycedo explore subjects ranging from Indigenous stewardship traditions and ecofeminism to biodiversity loss and the Anthropocene. Over half the works in the show were selected from the museum’s collection to reduce shipping emissions.

Even the exhibition’s wall labels are sustainable and biodegradable. Designed by the Melbourne-based studio Other Matter, the signage is made of algae-derived polymers that are non-petrochemical and safer and easier to use than traditional, toxic PVC vinyl. The museum is the first in the US to use this material.

Gathering of green minds

The exhibition served as the backdrop for the museum’s Art + Environment Summit, titled Under Pressure, which took place in April. The triennial gathering launched in 2008 and has evolved into one of the institution’s signature events, convening artists, scientists, Indigenous leaders, writers and environmental thinkers.

An undercurrent of some conversations was the impact on industries like mining on climate change. Reno is a particularly poignant backdrop for such discussions. Outside the city is the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, a 107,000-acre centre that is home to factories, data centres and warehouses for companies like Tesla and Google. The centre is the largest of its kind in the US, the third-largest in the world and is rapidly growing.

The complex has decimated the land. What used to be stunning mountain vistas are now crowded with architectural behemoths. These spaces, especially the data centres, require significant water for cooling, straining the waterways in the region already struggling with drought. These activities are impacting the land and the people who live there, including the Pyramid Lake Paiute, who live downriver.

The NMA does not shy away from these conversations and maintains a close relationship with Indigenous tribes, which was clear during the summit. “We have the opportunity to learn from our state’s tribal communities, and they’ve been generous with knowledge over the decades,” Walker says. “It’s something special about Nevada, there’s a closeness between different communities.”

Given how dire the climate crisis is, the museum’s commitment to leveraging its position as a cultural leader is promising.

“Nevada has a history of taking risks and experimentation, for better or worse,” Walker says. “Over 80% of the state is controlled by the federal government and there’s a long legacy of mining, military installations and atomic testing. The mythology of Nevada is a point of pride for many, so we embrace that in our curatorial practice. Maybe some members of the community might not love this show, but maybe they’ll love the next one. We can take risks here that are harder to take in large metropolitan areas, so you better believe we’re going to take them.”

For DiQuinzio, the history and diverse political viewpoints in Nevada were one of the reasons she wanted to move there. “I’d been living in a liberal bubble for a long time,” she says. “I wanted to be in a place that could reach across the aisle and create a bridge. It’s about inviting people in and not shutting them down.”

• Into the Time Horizon, Nevada Museum of Art, until 3 January 2027